Since 2003, reporter Dan Egan has been reporting on threats facing the lakes. His groundbreaking work has shown the damage caused by invasive species and has laid out the bold steps that could be taken to restore and protect the world’s largest freshwater system.

Milwaukee, circa 2014: An executive from a water-purification company in Shanghai steps off a plane at Mitchell International Airport and is greeted by a sign that reads, "Welcome to the Freshwater Hub of the World."

He boards a light rail train that whisks him to the downtown lakefront, where he takes in the sight of the gleaming white Milwaukee Art Museum and Discovery World buildings, both flanking the newest gem on the Lake Michigan shore: the multimillion-dollar headquarters of the Milwaukee Water Council and portions of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences. Among the features inside is a renowned library holding one of the nation's best collections of legal, technological and business books and documents about the management and protection of water.

Is this vision, brought to you by the newly incorporated Water Council, little more than a pipe dream? Perhaps. But the notion of building a water research and business center adjacent to Discovery World, where the shuttered Pieces of Eight restaurant sits, rapidly has gathered a come-from-nowhere momentum and is embraced by community leaders from UWM Chancellor Carlos Santiago to Mayor Tom Barrett and some of the region's most influential business leaders.

At the same time, a related proposal would transform UWM's satellite harbor campus, currently housed in an abandoned factory south of downtown, into a new research park and adjacent business incubator, along with more classrooms, labs and offices for the graduate School of Freshwater Sciences, which UWM is launching.

Both projects are meant to draw international investment, research and visitors. In the process, civic leaders say, the metro region has its best opportunity in decades to replace its Rust Belt identity with a growth-oriented emphasis built around the stable of water-technology companies that already are located in and around Milwaukee.

Planning is in the early stages. Anything built near Milwaukee's waterfront needs to clear multiple committees, hurdles and intense public scrutiny over aesthetics and land use. UWM and its partners also need to raise prodigious amounts of money and are lobbying for nearly $70 million under the nation's economic stimulus program to transform the harbor campus.

The incentives, however, are clear. Water technology and infrastructure represent a $424 billion-a-year market by some estimates, one that enjoys pockets of growth even amid the worldwide downturn. A full-blown technology race has emerged in pursuit of energy-efficient ways to clean, conserve, desalinate and pump an increasingly scarce commodity.

The economics of water "will define the region for the next 30 years," says Dean Amhaus, who runs the Spirit of Milwaukee, a civic promotion agency that coordinates efforts to craft a modern image for the metro region on behalf of the Milwaukee 7 economic development group.

Flood of opportunity

The Water Council was formed in July 2007 as a loosely knit subcommittee of the M-7, which itself is the main venue for economic strategy in the seven counties of southeastern Wisconsin.

Since then, the scarcity of clean water has emerged as an urgent global issue. It also has become apparent that the Milwaukee region is home to scores of water engineering companies, including big water subsidiaries for the likes of ITT Corp., a Fortune 500 water group; Siemens AG of Germany; and Pentair Inc., the biggest of the region's water employers. There are also scores of smaller water-related firms.

On Jan. 29, the Water Council reincorporated itself as a stand-alone agency with its own board, which includes the chief executives of Badger Meter Inc., which makes water meters, and A.O. Smith Corp., a global manufacturer of water heaters. It aims to spur economic growth by linking local water-infrastructure firms with universities, federal research money, business attraction efforts and, ideally, a few venture capitalists. The council and its goals have gained support from both of the state's U.S. senators, local politicians, and the Greater Milwaukee Committee civic and business group.

"It's a departure from the Rust Belt mantra that has been saddled upon this community," said Barrett, a supporter of the Water Council and its lakefront ambitions.

"I've never seen a community initiative get this much traction and move this fast - ever," said Christian Bartley, chief executive of the World Trade Center Wisconsin. Bartley's trade-promotion agency belongs to a network of 326 World Trade Centers in 92 countries that Bartley said he uses to disseminate the city's new brand as a world water hub.

Bartley is willing to move his agency, currently cramped in the nearby War Memorial building, into the proposed water center, sharing the space with the Water Council; Marquette University's water policy and water law research fellows; and possibly, state environmental agencies or environmental nonprofits.

Much of the proposed building would house UWM's freshwater faculty and classrooms, although all the labs and wet research would stay in the existing harbor campus.

UWM has its own incentive to run with the idea. The university has languished for decades in the shadow of the state's flagship research campus in Madison, which for decades has garnered the lion's share of state university funding.

"This region has yet to transition into the 21st-century, knowledge-based economy," said Santiago, a board member of the Water Council.

Bare-bones research site

The first students in UWM's graduate freshwater program are expected to enroll next year.

For now, UWM's harbor campus is home to the Great Lakes Water Institute, an ecological research facility. It's housed in a windowless ceramic tile factory that closed in 1971. Its main research vessel was built in 1953 and was not initially designed for aquatic research.

UWM recently applied for $44 million in stimulus funding for the harbor campus, including $16 million to build a modern research ship. Aghast that visitors would drive through a seedy district of shuttered buildings to arrive at the institute, which lies adjacent to a mountainous heap of coal, City Hall also wants to revitalize that end of Greenfield Ave. with a new streetscape.

Separately, Barrett's administration is lobbying for $25 million in stimulus funds to build the business park for water-technology start-ups, to be adjacent to the existing UWM building.

"That will create a buzz beyond the frontiers of Wisconsin," Santiago said.

The most iconic architecture, however, is reserved for the downtown lakefront.

UWM's School of Architecture and Urban Planning has begun design concepts. And it's a safe guess that it will be gleaming white against the aquatic blue, Santiago quips, just like the architectural icons on either side. The new research ship would tie up at both sites.

Until the Water Council has $25 million to $30 million to build the new site, UWM might try to retrofit the Pieces of Eight building to jump-start the move.

UWM is in talks with donors for funding, most notably Milwaukee industrialist-turned-philanthropist Michael Cudahy. The school will need to apply to the city's Harbor Commission to gain control of a long-term lease on the land. The state Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Coast Guard and the city's Common Council all need to approve the project.